Do not be afraid of sudden panic, or of the ruin of the wicked, when it comes; for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught.
Proverbs 3: 25-26
I’m not ashamed to share some of my story through my writing. I’ve had triumphs and setbacks, just like everyone else. They are part of the narrative that makes me who I am. When I was in high school, I was very introverted and socially awkward. I didn’t have a lot of friends and felt lonely a lot of the time. It’s interesting that in recent years, as I have communicated with high school classmates via social media, I find that many of them, especially the ones I looked up to and were envious of because I thought they had many friends, say that they were actually pretty lonely too. Just because they had friends or were popular didn’t make them understood, and didn’t give them a place where they could just be them, without pretending to be someone else.
One beautiful memory from high school was something someone wrote in my yearbook senior year. It said, “Stay the person you are, and one day, someone special will love you for it.” In other words, just be you. Most of us spend a good deal of our lives trying to be someone that we are not. Either we engage in risky or wrong behaviors in order to get approval. Or we are motivated by jealousy to be someone else that we aren’t. The “essential me” is probably pretty good for most of us. That’s because each of us was created in the image and likeness of God, and God doesn’t make people that are no good. The not good part of each of us is learned, we are not born with it.
In today’s world, we’ve taken the phrase, “just be you,” and used it to rationalize all kinds of stupid and unsavory behavior. That’s not what “just be you” should mean. “Just be you” should refer to the best version of ourselves, the person who God created us to be. God did not create me to be a doctor or an athlete. I don’t have scientific skills and I sure don’t have athletic ones. In high school, I tried so hard to be an athlete because athletes were “popular” and if you wanted to be popular, this seemed to be the only way to do it. I pushed myself as an athlete, to the point that I suffered a serious injury to my elbow. And then I hid the injury because I was determined to be an athlete, and get a “letter jacket” (does anyone wear THESE things anymore?). In the process, I ended up having ulnar collateral surgery on my right elbow. Now, decades after graduating from high school, I no longer have the letter jacket, but I do have a right elbow that gives me issues, all because I tried to be something I really wasn’t.
Pushing oneself to be popular has led to unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, sexual assault, legal issues, bad grades, failed marriages, lost jobs and health issues. “Just being you” might not make you popular, but it will probably keep you from getting seriously hurt. One of the many problems in the world today is the pressure to be someone we are not, as well as frustration when we can’t be something we are not. We aren’t all meant to go to college. Just like we aren’t all meant to be athletes. God means for each of us to love another and to serve one another and to be kind to one another. Each of us will do this in a different way.
I was explaining to my teenage son recently that there are some careers that pay more money than others. For instance, a lawyer and a priest could work the same amount of hours and the lawyer might make ten times more than the priest. And the professional athlete ten times more than the lawyer. That doesn’t make a lawyer ten times more valuable than a priest, or an athlete ten times more valuable than a lawyer. God is not going to judge us based on popularity or pocketbook, but rather on effort, on whether we were the best version of who He created us to be. God’s call for my life is to be a priest, not a lawyer or an athlete. Rather than mourn for what I cannot be, I can be grateful for what I can be, for what God created me to be, for who and what I am.
One of my favorite prayers says “For You (God) did not create man for destruction, but for the keeping of the commandments and to inherit life incorruptible.” (7th Prayer from the Sacrament of Holy Unction in the Orthodox Church, trans. By Fr. George Papadeas) So be the best version of you, stay away from things that cause destruction to you or others, keep God’s commandments, and work your way to eternal life.
Lord, thank You for creating me and bringing me into this world. Thank You for (list things about yourself that you are thankful for). Help me to be the best version of the person You created me to be. Give me discernment to see who and what I should be. Give me gratitude for who I am and what I have. Help me to look at others not with jealousy but with joy, so that I may encourage others to be the best version of themselves. Bring people around me who will encourage me to be who I am, not who I am not, who will encourage me to be the person You created me to be. Amen.
Do no mourn for what you cannot be. Be grateful for who you can be, for what God created you to be, for who and for what you are. Just be you!
